Collaborative Verification-Driven Engineering of Hybrid Systems

Hybrid systems with both discrete and continuous dynamics are an important model for real-world cyber-physical systems. The key challenge is to ensure their correct functioning w.r.t. safety requirements. Promising techniques to ensure safety seem to be model-driven engineering to develop hybrid systems in a well-defined and traceable manner, and formal verification to prove their correctness. Their combination forms the vision of verification-driven engineering. Often, hybrid systems are rather complex in that they require expertise from many domains (e.g., robotics, control systems, computer science, software engineering, and mechanical engineering). Moreover, despite the remarkable progress in automating formal verification of hybrid systems, the construction of proofs of complex systems often requires nontrivial human guidance, since hybrid systems verification tools solve undecidable problems. It is, thus, not uncommon for development and verification teams to consist of many players with diverse expertise. This paper introduces a verification-driven engineering toolset that extends our previous work on hybrid and arithmetic verification with tools for (i) graphical (UML) and textual modeling of hybrid systems, (ii) exchanging and comparing models and proofs, and (iii) managing verification tasks. This toolset makes it easier to tackle large-scale verification tasks

Relative effectiveness of robot-assisted and standard laparoscopic prostatectomy as alternatives to open radical prostatectomy for treatment of localised prostate cancer : a systematic review and mixed treatment comparison meta-analysis

© 2013 The Authors. BJU International © 2013 BJU International.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Advancing automation and robotics technology for the Space Station Freedom and for the US economy

Described here is the progress made by Levels 1, 2, and 3 of the Space Station Freedom in developing and applying advanced automation and robotics technology. Emphasis was placed on the Space Station Freedom program responses to specific recommendations made in the Advanced Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) Progress Report 13, and issues of A&R implementation into the payload operations integration Center at Marshall Space Flight Center. Assessments are presented for these and other areas as they apply to the advancement of automation and robotics technology for Space Station Freedom

User Needs, Benefits, and Integration of Robotic Systems in a Space Station Laboratory

The methodology, results and conclusions of all tasks of the User Needs, Benefits, and Integration Study (UNBIS) of Robotic Systems in a Space Station Laboratory are summarized. Study goals included the determination of user requirements for robotics within the Space Station, United States Laboratory. In Task 1, three experiments were selected to determine user needs and to allow detailed investigation of microgravity requirements. In Task 2, a NASTRAN analysis of Space Station response to robotic disturbances, and acceleration measurement of a standard industrial robot (Intelledex Model 660) resulted in selection of two ranges of microgravity manipulation: Level 1 (10-3 to 10-5 G at greater than 1 Hz) and Level 2 (less than equal 10-6 G at 0.1 Hz). This task included an evaluation of microstepping methods for controlling stepper motors and concluded that an industrial robot actuator can perform milli-G motion without modification. Relative merits of end-effectors and manipulators were studied in Task 3 in order to determine their ability to perform a range of tasks related to the three microgravity experiments. An Effectivity Rating was established for evaluating these robotic system capabilities. Preliminary interface requirements for an orbital flight demonstration were determined in Task 4. Task 5 assessed the impact of robotics

Towards Declarative Safety Rules for Perception Specification Architectures

Agriculture has a high number of fatalities compared to other blue collar fields, additionally population decreasing in rural areas is resulting in decreased work force. These issues have resulted in increased focus on improving efficiency of and introducing autonomy in agriculture. Field robots are an increasingly promising branch of robotics targeted at full automation in agriculture. The safety aspect however is rely addressed in connection with safety standards, which limits the real-world applicability. In this paper we present an analysis of a vision pipeline in connection with functional-safety standards, in order to propose solutions for how to ascertain that the system operates as required. Based on the analysis we demonstrate a simple mechanism for verifying that a vision pipeline is functioning correctly, thus improving the safety in the overall system.Comment: Presented at DSLRob 2015 (arXiv:1601.00877